


Thursday's Child (far to go)

by i_claudia



Series: Monday's Child [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2011-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 17:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He emerges from the boardroom six months after his father’s death, and disappears into the first bookstore he finds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thursday's Child (far to go)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/70868.html). (22 May 2011)
> 
>  
> 
> _Monday’s child is fair of face  
>  Tuesday’s child is full of grace  
> Wednesday’s child is full of woe  
> Thursday’s child has far to go_

He emerges from the boardroom six months after his father’s death, and disappears into the first bookstore he finds.

He isn’t a big reader, never has been. He goes not to find solace in the words themselves but in the smell of them, the sweet musty caress of worn books which have been loved too often and too well. He allows himself the indulgence of brushing his fingers along their spines, tracing the peeling gilt lettering of one, lingering over another spotted with mold or water or both. The shelves are close to each other, stacked too high with unknown tomes; the rows feel too narrow, airless as he wanders further back, but there are currents here, powerful beneath the stillness, and these he gives himself over to. It is a comfort to be among fellows, among men and women who took their worlds in hand and twisted them until they won or died.

In another year he will be free—freer—liberated from the confines of a corporation so much larger than this tiny shop and with so much less room for him to move. He wants—and more than wants, needs—to do the thing right, and whether that impulse stems from some tragically misguided inner compulsion that aims to please his father and prove him wrong even now, even in death, or from a deeper personal peculiarity, he’ll take the necessary time to tie up every loose end and ensure that no other company can use the empire he inherited for their own gain. Fischer Morrow may no longer hold sway over the world, but he’ll be damned if he lets anyone else grab that power: a last bitter salute to the world he was born for.

He’d thought occasionally, in his more rebellious moments, of starting over with a place like this, a tiny shop in some small tourist town where he’d never have to wear another suit, but he knows it will never be more than a temporary fantasy. He is too much his father’s son still: a childhood spent studying the weaknesses and gradual defeat of each competitor has given him an abiding taste for blood and battle. Putting on a suit is like putting on his armor, and after so long spent inside of it he cannot willingly take it off.

It will necessarily start small, whatever he begins—though nowhere near as small as this shop—but he will cultivate it carefully, raise it to glory and blaze his way back into the world he knows on his own power. He’s already arranged for his lawyers to quietly negotiate with a few desperate European firms which show promise. The millstone he’s carried all his life is already halfway cut from around his neck: one year more and it will be gone entirely, and he will be his own man, ready to build his own empire.

An emperor, he thinks absently, leafing through a book that’s been left out without seeing the words, but one without an heir. He wants no risk of following his father, of sending yet another young man to drift along, trapped in his wake. This lifetime will be enough for him; he has no desire for immortality through blood kin.

A glance at his watch tells him he is on the verge of running late—he has passed too much idle time here when there is a world waiting for him outside the door. He straightens his tie and leaves, walking purposefully out of the door with barely a nod for the old man behind the counter. The owner, perhaps: a fellow soul who has taken charge of his own destiny. Robert feels no kinship with him, only with the dusty pages upon which so many larger lives are written. He lets the door swing close behind him, lowering his dark glasses against the sun, and does not look back.


End file.
